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Monumento aos mortos da Primeira Guerra Mundial in
Coimbra, Portugal

Despite its old alliance with Britain, Portugal did not
form a part of the system of alliances which became enemies in
World War
I and thus kept its neutrality during the first years
of war. Portugal suffered from the German U-Boat warfare which sought
to blockade the United Kingdom — at the time the most important
market for Portuguese products. Clashes also occurred with German
troops in the south of the Portuguese colony of Angola.

Initially both the Portuguese and the German governments
formally stuck to Portuguese neutrality. However, eventually the
tension between wanting to comply with British requests and staying
neutral grew too great, and a confiscation of German economic
interests resulted in Germany declaring war.

1916

June 9Afonso Costa (Finance Minister) and
Augusto Soares participated in an Allied Economic Conference where
the Allies decided that as condition for peace, Germany would have
to return the territories of Alsace-Lorraine to France (occupied since 1871) and Kionga in Mozambique to Portugal
(occupied since 1894).

July 15 The British government formally invited
Portugal to take an active part in the military actions of the Allies.

August 7 The Portuguese parliament accepted
the participation of Portugal in the war, following the invitation
of the British government. The Portuguese war effort reached 55,000
infantry soldiers, plus 1,000 artillerymen, to be sent to France -
4,000 soldiers per month - in order to man 12 km of battlefront. In
fact, only the first two divisions reached France, as the shipping
of American troops drastically reduced the Allies' transportation
capacity. At the same time Portugal fielded forces in its African
colonies, in Mozambique, to defend the colony from German colonial
forces, and in the south of Angola, against native unrest
instigated by the Germans.

December 26 The French government asked Portugal to send
artillery crews to France to operate 20 to 30 heavy artillery
batteries.

1917

January 7 The Independent Heavy Artillery
Corps (Corpo de Artilharia Pesada Independente, CAPI) was
created to respond to the French request for artillery crews. Under
a Portuguese Superior Command, this unit would operate 25 heavy
artillery batteries.

February 2 The first Portuguese troops arrived
at the port of Brest, in Brittany, France.

February 23 The second contingent of the CEP
left for France.

April 4 The Portuguese troops arrived at the
front. First Portuguese casualty: Private António Gonçalves Curado
(killed in action).

May 30 The 1st Infantry Brigade of the CEP 1st
Division occupied a sector in the battle front.

June 4 German attack on the sector defended by
the 1st Brigade.

June 16 2nd Infantry Brigade occupied another
sector on the battle front.

July 10 CEP 1st Division assumed
responsibility of its part of the Portuguese sector on the battle
front. It was subordinated to the XI Corps of the British Army, under
the command of General Richard Haking. CEP 3rd Infantry Brigade
occupied a sector on the battle front.

September 23 The 4th Brigade, known as the
Brigade of Minho (Brigada do Minho), part
of the 2nd Division, reached the front.

October 17 The first Portuguese artillery
soldiers, representing Portugal’s direct support to the French war
effort, arrived in France. They were designated as Corps
d’Artillerie Lourde Portugais (CALP).

November 5 Portuguese command assumed the
responsibility for its sector in the front. Until this date it had
been under the command of General Henry Horne’s British First Army.

Late 1917 In Portuguese East Africa, German officer Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck,
after a series of long running battles with numerically superior
British forces, entered the colony from nearby German East
Africa. In July 1918, he captured Namakura/Nhamacurra and
seized important arms and supplies for his force after similar
smaller successes against Portuguese outposts had already helped
reprovision his force.[1]

1918

March 27 A German offensive restrains the
Portuguese soldiers from being released. As a third Portuguese
Division was never sent to France, the Portuguese army did not
receive reinforcements at all. Portuguese soldiers had to serve in
the battle front for long periods and, as a consequence, they were
amongst the most exhausted men in the front.

April 6 The condition of the Portuguese
soldiers become so difficult that, finally, the British decided to
release the Portuguese. The CEP was supposed to be reorganized, the
1st Division going to the rear as a reserve force and the 2nd
Division becoming part of the 11th Corps of the British Army, under
General Haking’s command. Haking visits the Portuguese troops and
decides to send the 2nd Division to the rear from April 9, which
would never happen. The Germans attacked the British lines, forcing
them to retreat about 60 km. Instead of being released the
Portuguese troops had to fight off the German offensive on its
sector.

April 9 The Battle of La Lys,
as it became known in Portugal, or Operation
Georgette, or Battle of
Estaires to the British, started with a heavy artillery barrage
from the Germans, followed by a German offensive with intensive use
of lethal gas. The German Sixth Army deployed eight divisions
(about 100,000 men), supported by intensive artillery fire. Against
this force the Portuguese had 20,000 soldiers and 88 guns. As a
result the 2nd Division was annihilated during the battle. The
Portuguese CEP lost 327 officers and 7098 soldiers, about 35% of
its effective fighting capacity. The survivors were sent to the
rear, some of the units being integrated in the British Army later
on. During this battle one of the most courageous acts in
Portuguese history was perpetrated, as private Aníbal
Milhais (a.k.a. "Soldado Milhões" (A Soldier as good as a
million others)) defended all alone the retreating allied forces
with nothing but his machine gun, allowing them to fall back and
regroup. Once he ran out of bullets he escaped the battlefield,
after killing a regiment of German soldiers on motorcycles, yet, he
got lost along the way, having to eat nothing but sweet-almonds his
family had sent him from Portugal for four days. And as if he
hadn't been brave enough, this exhausted soldier was able to rescue
a Scottish doctor from drowning in a swamp. This doctor led him to
the Allied camp and told everyone Milhais' deeds.

July General Tomás António Garcia Rosado is
appointed as the new commanding chief of the remaining CEP.

After the
Armistice

1919

January 18 The Portuguese delegation at the
Peace Conference in Versailles, France, was led by Prof. Egas
Moniz. In the Peace Treaty, Germany had to cede the port of Kionga,
hitherto associated with German East Africa (the mainland of
modern Tanzania), to
Portugal.